By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
An innovative approach hopes to improve health care in rural communities.
UMKC plans to open its new medical school in St. Joseph in 2025. The aim of the school to be built across the street from the Mosaic Life Care campus is to increase the number of physicians and other medical personnel serving rural areas. UMKC has operated a medical program on the Mosaic campus the past three years with the new medical school extending and expanding the university’s offerings.
Mosaic CEO Mike Poore says the UMKC students already being trained at Mosaic work alongside physicians serving rural communities.
“St. Joe is their anchor in this area, but they also have rotations that go through our Albany and Maryville campuses,” Poore tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. “And, again, exposing them to different types of medicine, rural medicine, is very important, because recruiting physicians to rural medicine is immensely difficult these days.”
Poore and others say the biggest need of rural communities is access to primary care physicians. Poore adds there is a dire need for OB/GYN practitioners in rural areas.
The UMKC School of Medicine plans to train 80 students at a time with the goal of graduating 20 students a year from its St. Joseph campus.
Former state senator and current Truman Medical Center CEO Charlie Shields says rural America needs the basics: general practitioners. Shields has confidence the partnership between UMKC and Mosaic Life Care will help meet the need.
“So I think, really, the community, but like I say all of northwest Missouri and I should add northeast Kansas are really in a good position right now,” according to Shields. “Adding this medical school and eventually getting the residency program will benefit the entire region.”
UMKC School of Medicine Dean Dr. Mary Anne Jackson says the new building and the programs held there should make great strides in filling gaps in rural health care.
“So we think we have the secret sauce to make this work and I just can’t wait until we get our first graduates, have them enter residency programs and then see how they succeed as clinicians, as educators, and leaders,” Jackson tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post.
Jackson says past efforts have failed to fill the need. She believes this new approach will produce different results.